Extraordinary Evidence | ESP Is Real is a limited series on the history, struggles, and proofs of parapsychology and the science of studying the supernatural.
Mitch Horowitzâtodayâs leading independent scholar of the occultâuses revealing, stringently documented historical and scientific data, interviews, and archival recordings to explore the dramatic rise, attacks on, and revolutionary findings of parapsychology in areas from ESP and precognition to after-death survival and reincarnation.
Original Score by Dean Hurley, Produced by Jim Perry & Jon McEdward for SpectreVision Radio
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Coming This Fall - Extraordinary Evidence | ESP Is Real is a limited series on the history, struggles, and proofs of parapsychology and the science of studying the supernatural. Mitch Horowitzâtodayâs leading independent scholar of the occultâuses revealing, stringently documented historical and scientific data, interviews, and archival recordings to explore the dramatic rise, attacks on, and revolutionary findings of parapsychology in areas from ESP and precognition to after-death survival and reincarnation.
Original Score by Dean Hurley, Produced by Jim Perry & Jon Mcedward for SpectreVision Radio
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Episode 1: Moonrise
Season 1 ¡ Episode 1
Wednesday, October 30, 2024 ⢠Duration 43:42
Episode 1: Moonrise
For millennia, humanity has pursued higher knowing. In antiquity, soldiers and statesmen turned to oracles such as the prophetess at Delphi and pictogrammatic language of the I-Ching.Â
Seen from a certain perspective, nearly all religion predates science as the wish to know first causes. In that vein, nineteenth-century sĂŠances treat gawkers to floating pianos, viscous âectoplasmâ spilling from the orifices of (mostly female) mediums, and ghostly figures materializing. Even Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln host table-rappings in the White House. Is any of it real?Â
One moonlit night at Cambridge University in 1870 a handful of scientists determine to find out. Their efforts become the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), which attracts Victorian luminaries such as William James, Sigmund Freud, and Arthur Balfour, Britainâs prime minister.Â
Some of the finest scientists and philosophers of the era begin probing the verity of the supernatural.
This signal has been transmitted by SpectreVision Radio
Written and Narrated by Mitch Horowitz
Produced by Jim Perry and Jon McEdward
Original Music & Sound Design by Dean Hurley
Cover Artwork by Jake in Colour
Selected References
The Elusive Science: Origins of Experimental Psychical Research by Seymour H. Mauskopf and Michael R. McVaugh (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980)Â
TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information by Erik Davis (Harmony, 1998)Â
The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry by Henri F. Ellenberger (Basic Books, 1970)
From Mesmer to Freud: Magnetic Sleep and the Roots of Psychoanalytic Healing by Adam Crabtree (Yale University Press, 1993)
Abnormal Hypnotic Phenomena, vols. 1â4, edited by Eric J. Dingwall (J. & A. Churchill/ Barnes & Noble, 1968)
Modern Occultism: History, Theory, and Practice by Mitch Horowitz (G&D Media, 2023)
Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation by Mitch Horowitz (Bantam, 2009)
Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Womenâs Rights in 19th Century America by Ann Braude (Beacon, 1989)
Phantasms of the Living by Edmund Gurney, F.W.H. Myers, and Frank Podmore, 2 vols. (1886)
âCharles Richetâ by C.S. Alvarado, Psi Encyclopedia, London: The Society for Psychical Research, 2015
Archive Clips
JB Rhine | 70 years at The Rhine
Carrie Chapman Catt on Suffragism
Russel Targ on The Case of ESP
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Episode 3: Mushroom X
Season 1 ¡ Episode 3
Wednesday, November 13, 2024 ⢠Duration 39:10
Episode 3: Mushroom X
The Age of Aquarius intermingles uneasily with the Parapsychology Revolution. The two cultural currents, like many in the Western world, both interweave and repel.Â
This symbiosis and friction appears within the relationship of J.B. Rhine and the young scientist who seems his natural protĂŠgĂŠ: Charles Honorton. But J.B. and the researcher clash, resulting in Honorton departing the Rhine lab to pioneer an extraordinary series of trials testing for telepathy. They are called the ganzfeld experiments. Â
Honortonâs findings prove so remarkable that, for a time, he even bridges the seeker-skeptic divide. The new comity is short-lived. Struggling with lifelong health issues, Honorton dies at 46, leaving the parapsychology field rudderless and easy prey for media skeptics.
In other facets of psi research, dreams, psychedelia, magick mushrooms, and the Grateful Dead come together.Â
This signal has been transmitted by SpectreVision Radio
Written and Narrated by Mitch Horowitz
Produced by Jim Perry and Jon McEdward
Original Music & Sound Design by Dean Hurley
Cover Artwork by Jake in Colour
Selected References
Extrasensory Perception, Vols. 1 & 2, edited by Edwin C. May and Sonali Bhatt Marwaha (Praeger, 2015)
The Enchanted Voyager: The Life of J.B. Rhine by Denis Brian (Prentice-Hall, 1982)
Daydream Believer: Exploring the Ultimate Power of Your Mind by Mitch Horowitz (G&D Media, 2022)
âFederal Grant Supports ESP Dream Research at Maimonidesâ by Gordon T. Thompson, New York Times, November 25, 1973
âWhat Is the Link Between Hallucinations, Dreams, and Hypnagogic-Hypnopompic Experiences?â by Flavie Waters, et al., Schizophrenia Bulletin, 2016 Sept, 42(5)
âNeuro-hypnotism: prospects for hypnosis and neuroscienceâ by John F. Kihlstrom, Cortex, vol. 49, 2, 2013
âDoes Psi Exist? Replicable Evidence for an Anomalous Process of Information Transferâ by Daryl J. Bem and Charles Honorton, Psychological Bulletin, 1994, Vol. 115, â.1Â
âChapter 4: Experimental Research on Extrasensory Perception,â An Introduction to Parapsychology, fifth edition by Irwin and Watt (McFarland, 2007): âIn an assessment of the literature by Honorton (1978), 23 of 42 experiments conducted in ten different laboratories had yielded significant ESP performance under ganzfeld conditions; this success rate of 55% was far beyond that expected by chance.â
âA Joint CommuniquĂŠ: The Psi Ganzfeld Controversyâ by Ray Hyman and Charles Honorton, Journal of Parapsychology, vol. 50, December 1986
âReplication and Meta-Analysis in Parapsychologyâ by Jessica Utts, Statistical Science, Vol. 6, â. 4, 1991
Archive Clips
One Step Beyond: The Sacred Mushroom (January 24th, 1961)
The Case of ESP
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Episode 2: Institute for Experimental Religion
Season 1 ¡ Episode 2
Wednesday, November 6, 2024 ⢠Duration 45:12
Episode 2: Institute for Experimental Religion
As the twentieth century dawns, parapsychology is divided between ghost
huntersâlike Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyleâand psi
seekersâlike a young Sigmund Freud, who takes deeper interest in ESP and
telepathy than is commonly understood.
Early parapsychologists made strides with the British and American branches of
the Society for Psychical Research. William James and colleagues probe mysteries,
expose fakes, and generate controversies. But they function largely on mediumsâ
own turf: lace-curtain settings of Victorian sĂŠance parlors.
Enter two young, driven, and deeply ethical clinicians: J.B. and Louisa Rhine. âIt
would be unpardonable,â J.B. announces in 1926, âfor the scientific world today to
overlook evidences of the supernormal in our world,â
Wooed to Duke University, the Rhines in the late 1920s inaugurate the Institute for
Experimental Religion, later called the Parapsychology Laboratory. The lab
formally introduces psi research into academia. The Rhinesâ effortsâinvolving
âguessâ hits on Zener cardsâprove simple, rigorous, and extraordinary. They
make extrasensory perception or ESP a household term. Stats and studies from the
Parapsychology Lab, including evidence for psychokinesis, withstand decades of
withering scrutiny.
This signal has been transmitted by SpectreVision Radio
Written and Narrated by Mitch Horowitz
Produced by Jim Perry and Jon McEdward
Original Music & Sound Design by Dean Hurley
Cover Artwork by Jake in Colour
Selected References
The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud by Ernest Jones, Vol. 3 (Basic Books, 1957)
The Future of the Body: Explorations Into the Further Evolution Of Human Nature
by Michael Murphy (Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1992)
The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol.
XVIII (1920-1922) edited by James Strachey, Anna Freud, Alix Strachey and Alan
Tyson
Unbelievable: Investigations into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy, and Other
Unseen Phenomena from the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory by Stacy Horn
(Ecco, 2009)
Something Hidden by Louisa E. Rhine (McFarland, 1983)
J.B. Rhine: Letters 1923-1939: ESP and the Foundations of Parapsychology
by J.B. Rhine edited by Barbara Ensrud and Sally Rhine Feather (McFarland,
2021)
âChapter 6: Psychokinesis,â An Introduction to Parapsychology, fifth edition, by
Harvey J. Irwin and Caroline A. Watt (McFarland, 2007)
Extra-Sensory Perception by J.B. Rhine (1934, Boston Society for Psychic
Research)
Extra-Sensory Perception After Sixty Years by J.G. Pratt, J.B. Rhine, Burke M.
Smith, Charles E. Stuart, and Joseph A. Greenwood (Henry Holt, 1940)
âTelepathy: Origins of Randomization in Experimental Designâ by Ian
Hacking, Isis, Sept 1988, Vol. 79, â3
âJ. B. Rhineâs Extra-Sensory Perception and Its Background in Psychical
Researchâ by Michael McVaugh and Seymour H. Mauskopf, Isis, June 1976, Vol.
67, â2
J.B. Rhine: On the Frontiers of Science edited by K. Ramakrishna Rao
(McFarland, 1982)
âWho Was J.B. Rhine?â by Rick Berger, Ph.D., February 14, 2020, at
parapsych.org, website of the Parapsychological Association
ESP and Parapsychology: A Critical Reevaluation by C.E.M. Hansel (Prometheus
Books, 1980)
âRhetoric over substance: the impoverished state of skepticismâ by Charles
Honorton, Journal of Parapsychology, June 1993
The Enchanted Voyager: The Life of J.B. Rhine by Denis Brian (Prentice-Hall,
1982)
Daydream Believer: Exploring the Ultimate Power of Your Mind by Mitch
Horowitz (G&D Media, 2022)
Archive Clips
Fairytale (1997)
Ghostbusters (1984)
Scooby Doo, Where Are You! (TV Series)
Charles Tart on The Case of ESP
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Episode 4: The Empire Strikes Back
Season 1 ¡ Episode 4
Wednesday, November 20, 2024 ⢠Duration 44:38
Episode 4: The Empire Strikes BackÂ
Alarmed by intelligence that the Soviets are using âpsychic spies,â the CIA inaugurates its own distance-spying program, Project Stargate in 1972.Â
Stargateâs key researchers, physicists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, coin the term âremote viewing.â The controversial program, whose subjects include psychic-artist Ingo Swann, lasts more than 20 years and wins over President Jimmy Carter.Â
For skeptics, however, itâs knives-out. Disgusted with the popularity of parapsychological themes in American lifeâand resiliently unwilling to distinguish between serious efforts like the Rhine Lab and Stargate versus the media showmanship of psychic Uri Geller and like performersâin 1976 a cohort of ideological skeptics, including stage magician James âThe Amazingâ Randi, organize Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal or CSICOP.
Unconcerned with scientific verities, data replication, or meta-analyses, the professional skeptics grease a soundbite machine that disparages academic parapsychologists and misleads the public through misrepresentations of psi research and suppression of the skepticsâ own confirmatory retrials.Â
Media fallout leaves parapsychology in near-tatters and starved for funding.Â
This signal has been transmitted by SpectreVision Radio
Written and Narrated by Mitch Horowitz
Produced by Jim Perry and Jon McEdward
Original Music & Sound Design by Dean Hurley
Cover Artwork by Jake in Colour
Selected References
âThe Crisis of Professional Skepticism: Leading skeptics fail the test of âextraordinary evidenceââ by Mitch Horowitz, Medium, February 27, 2023
âThe Man Who Destroyed Skepticism: Scourge of psychics James Randi was no skeptic; our culture is poorer as a resultâ by Mitch Horowitz, Boing Boing, October 26, 2020
âAnomalous Experiences and the Crisis of Skepticism: Why we need better skepticsâ by Mitch Horowitz, Medium, October 24, 2022
âIs Precognition Real?: Skeptics Eviscerated a Cornell Psychologist Whose Published Evidence Said Yes. A Decade Later, His Data Has Stood Upâ by Mitch Horowitz, Boing Boing, August 17, 2022
âHas Science Developed the Competence to Confront the Paranormal?â by Charles Honorton, Extrasensory Perception, Vol. 2, edited by Edwin C. May and Sonali Bhatt Marwaha (Praeger, 2015)
âRhetoric over substance: the impoverished state of skepticismâ by Charles Honorton, Journal of Parapsychology, June 1993
âThe Experimental Evidence for Parapsychological Phenomena: A Reviewâ by Etzel CardeĂąa, American Psychologist, 2018, Vol. 73, â5, 663â677
âDoes Psi Exist? Replicable Evidence for an Anomalous Process of Information Transferâ by Daryl J. Bem and Charles Honorton, Psychological Bulletin, 1994, Vol. 115, â.1
âReplication and Meta-Analysis in Parapsychologyâ by Jessica Utts, Statistical Science, Vol. 6, â. 4, 1991
âFederal research funding for psychology has not kept up with inflationâ by Luona Lin, MPP, Peggy Christidis, PhD, and Jessica Conroy, BA, apa.org
âRationalists are wrong about telepathyâ by Rupert Sheldrake, Unherd, Nov 22, 2021
âHeads I Win, Tails You Loseâ by Chris Carter, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 74, 2010
âA new case of experimenter unreliabilityâ by J.B. Rhine, Journal of Parapsychology, 38, 1974
âComments: A second report on a case of experimenter fraudâ by J.B. Rhine, Journal of Parapsychology, 39, 1975
Psi Wars by Craig Weiler (White Crow Books, 2013/2020)Â
âPostscript: Skeptics at Cal Tech,â Travels by Michael Crichton (Knopf, 1988)
âESP Debate: Is Belief in ESP Irrational?â by Steven Pinker vs. Brian D. Josephson, Skeptic Magazine, Reading Room, July 26, 2022
âThe Case Against Psiâ by Douglas M. Stokes, Parapsychology: A Hand- book for the 21st Century edited by Etzel CardeĂąa, John Palmer and David Marcusson-Clavertz (McFarland, 2015)
Archive Clips
The Case of ESP
Uri Geller on Johnny Carson
James Randi Talk Back to NOVA
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Episode 5: Reincarnation, Randomness, and Retrocausality
Season 1 ¡ Episode 5
Wednesday, November 27, 2024 ⢠Duration 57:58
Episode 5: Reincarnation, Randomness, and Retrocausality
Despite funding cuts, media evisceration, and the onslaught of skeptics and their muddying of data, parapsychology rises from the ashes. Into the twenty-first century, academic parapsychologists, sometimes working in isolation, make remarkable strides, even in areas that surpass traditional psi research. Â
Serious studies of life-after-death, extra-physical survival, and reincarnation reenter the foldâsometimes with impeccable evidence and methodology.Â
Other clinicians study the existence of a global âuniversal consciousnessâ and how psi figures into animal instinct. Still further innovators map out occurrences of precognition and even retrocausality, in which the future after the present.Â
In virtually every case, professional skeptics derideâand sometimes misrepresent data that parapsychologists gather with clinical assiduousness Although the parapsychology field is growing and expanding, every square inch of intellectual territory must be defended, often multiple times
This signal has been transmitted by SpectreVision Radio
Written and Narrated by Mitch Horowitz
Produced by Jim Perry and Jon McEdward
Original Music & Sound Design by Dean Hurley
Cover Artwork by Jake in Colour
Selected References
âIan Stevensonâs Case for the Afterlife: Are We âSkepticsâ Really Just Cynics?â by Jesse Bering, Scientific American, November 2, 2013
In September 1977, The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease dedicated a full issue to Stevensonâs work, as did the Journal of Scientific Exploration in 2008
(volume 22, number 1).
Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology.
of Birthmarks and Birth Defects (Praeger, 1997) by Ian Stevenson
Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (University Press of Virginia, 1966) by Ian Stevenson
For the work of the PEAR lab see: 1 * 2 * 3
See www.sheldrake.org/reactions, which explores a variety of issues and resources pertaining to âprofessional skepticism.âÂ
âRationalists are wrong about telepathyâ by Rupert Sheldrake, Unherd, Nov 22, 2021
âHeads I Win, Tails You Loseâ by Chris Carter, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 74, 2010
âA Dog That Seems to Know When His Owner Is Coming Home: Videotaped Experiments and Observationsâ by Rupert Sheldrake and Pamela Smart, Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 14, No. 2, January 2000
âFeeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affectâ by Daryl J. Bem, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2011, Vol. 100, â3
âJournalâs Paper on ESP Expected to Prompt Outrageâ by Benedict Carey, New York Times, Jan. 5, 2011
âFailing the Future: Three Unsuccessful Attempts to Replicate Bemâs âRetroactive Facilitation of Recallâ Effectâ by Stuart J. Ritchie, Richard Wiseman, Christopher C. French, PLoS ONE, March 2012, Volume 7, Issue 3
âBemâs response to Ritchie, Wiseman, and French,â posted 15 Mar 2012
âAuthorsâ response to Bem,â posted 15 Mar 2012
âDaryl Bem Proved ESP Is Real: Which means science is brokenâ By Daniel Engber, Slate, June 7, 2017
âREVISED: Feeling the future: A meta-analysis of 90 experiments on the anomalous anticipation of random future eventsâ [version 2; peer review: 2 approved] by Daryl Bem, Patrizio E. Tressoldi, Thomas Rabeyron, Michael Duggan, first published: 30 Oct 2015, latest published: 29 Jan 2016, last updated: 23 Jul 2020, F1000Research
âThe Unbearable Fear of Psi: On Scientific Suppression in the 21st Centuryâ by Etzel CardeĂąa Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 29, â4, December 15, 2015
 âThe Case Against Psiâ by Douglas M. Stokes, Parapsychology: A Hand- book for the 21st Century edited by Etzel CardeĂąa, John Palmer and David Marcusson-Clavertz (McFarland, 2015)
Archive Clips
Dr. Ian Stevenson * Dr. Roger Nelson * Dr. Daryl J. Bem * Dr. Rupert Sheldrake
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Episode 6: Pink Buckets (Part 2)
Season 1 ¡ Episode 6
Wednesday, December 11, 2024 ⢠Duration 44:22
Episode 6: Pink Buckets (Part 2)
One of the real challenges for parapsychology todayâand addressing this is vital to the fieldâs next leap forwardâis devising a theory of conveyance.Â
The field needs a persuasive theoretical model that pulls together the effects and posits how data and information are transferred in a manner unbound by time, space, distance, linearity, and common sensory experience. Researchers have made preliminary steps in this direction. Advances are overdue.
Is the absence of theory blinding our intellectual culture to the evidence? And does this blinkered vision finally matter? The public tends toward sympathy of ESP â not itself a valid measure of truth, but worth noting.Â
Nobel Prize winner in physics Max Planck: âA new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.â This may be the position in which orthodox materialists find themselves today.
This signal has been transmitted by SpectreVision Radio
Written and Narrated by Mitch Horowitz
Produced by Jim Perry and Jon McEdward
Original Music & Sound Design by Dean Hurley
Cover Artwork by Jake in Colour
Selected References
I wish to make special note of the Psi Encyclopedia (https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/), an online resource maintained by The Society for Psychical Research in London. This ongoing effort began in 2014 to provide scholarly reference material on the history and findings of parapsychology. Given the problem of systemic misrepresentation of parapsychology on Wikipedia, which I note in several episodes, the Psi Encyclopedia presents an important counter-source. In my experience, its more than 550 (and growing) entries are both judicious toward skeptics and appropriately critical toward parapsychological claims.
Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner (Oxford University Press, second edition, 2011)
Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness by Itzhak Bentov (Destiny Books, 1988)Â
Time, Myth, and Matter: Essays on the Natures and Narratives of Reality by L.D. Deutsch (Sacred Bones, 2025)
âHas Science Developed the Competence to Confront the Paranormal?â by Charles Honorton, Extrasensory Perception, Vol. 2, edited by Edwin C. May and Sonali Bhatt Marwaha (Praeger, 2015)
See âTelepathy: Origins of Randomization in Experimental Designâ by Ian Hacking, Isis, Sept 1988, Vol. 79, â3; âJ. B. Rhineâs Extra-Sensory Perception and Its Background in Psychical Researchâ by Michael McVaugh and Seymour H. Mauskopf, Isis, June 1976, Vol. 67, â2; and âCharles Richetâ by Carlos S. Alvarado, Psi Encyclopedia, London: The Society for Psychical Research, 2015.
Archive Clips
Dr. Dean Radin: A Quantum View of The World
Dr. Michio Kaku: Interpretations of Shrodinger's Cat
Russel Targ: Case of ESP
JB Rhine: 70 years at The Rhine
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Episode 6: Pink Buckets (Part 1)
Season 1 ¡ Episode 6
Wednesday, December 4, 2024 ⢠Duration 34:58
Episode 6: Pink Buckets (Part 1)
In this episode, we take a byway from science, history, data, and personality to explore the hostâs own experience.Â
Every reasonable person who documents metaphysical or paranormal phenomena stands wary of the hour when he or she is asked: what experiences have you had?Â
My answer: not many.
I do not collect or seek experiences. I wonder, sometimes, as William James did, whether possessing a hyper-rational or over-analytic mind deters them. Whatever the case, I do not box-check personal anomaliesânor reject them when they arrive.Â
I encountered my own white crow, so to speak, when I went searching for something else: pink, heart-shaped buckets.Â
This signal has been transmitted by SpectreVision Radio
Written and Narrated by Mitch Horowitz
Produced by Jim Perry and Jon McEdward
Original Music & Sound Design by Dean Hurley
Cover Artwork by Jake in Colour
Archive Clips
Dean Radin "Science and the taboo of psi"
Deep Red
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